The Dark Lord of Sunlight
by wulfenheim
Summary: It was supposed to end when the Chosen Undead turned his back from the first flame. Just moments after becoming the Dark Lord, the Chosen Undead now finds himself stranded in a mysterious world.
1. Chapter 1

Lord of Sunlight: Prologue

He had succeeded. After all the battles fought to reach this place, it was finally over.

Gwyn, the former lord of sunlight, was finally vanquished, and rather easily too. The former deity moved like a lumbering giant; too slow and too vulnerable. Hence, the chosen undead was able to utterly destroy (Curbstomp) the fallen lord. The chosen undead's speed was at such a great magnitude that he almost resembled a flurry of blades. But really, the battle lasted for 5 seconds before Leandros, the chosen undead, decided that his all too awesome moves seemed out of place, he then promptly kicked Gwyn in the nuts only to realize that the man had no balls ( Literally and Figuratively ), his only remaining course of action was to hack the man apart, which he did.

If he could sigh, then Leandros would've sighed by now, unfortunately for him, undead folk had no lungs. Of all the impossible challenges he had faced, of all the gods and dragons he had slain in single combat, this one was the most disappointing. But the task was done and now, two choices lay before him. To rekindle the flames or leave the first flame to its fate.

One choice, to rekindle the flames, would only serve to prolong the reign of the gods and, thus, prolong the curse of undeath. The other choice; to leave the flame to its eventual fate of burning out, and he would become the dark lord of a dying world.

Leandros contemplated briefly on his next possible course of action. Both choices offered no absolute victory, no benevolent effect in the long run. On one hand, the gods continue to rule and the world will survive, but the curse of undeath would remain. On the other hand, he would become the dark lord of the world and the curse of undeath would vanish, but the world dies. Not much of a choice really.

'No' Leandros thought. All his actions since the Undead Asylum, all of them boiled down to what now lay before him. From the Asylum Daemon down to the Original Lords, all of them paved the way to reach this and, after all the trials and hardship he'd faced, he would not falter now. He began his journey to end the curse of undeath, and the choice was clear to him now. 'The curse ends now'

So he left the flame to its fate….

When Leandros emerged from the Kiln of the first flame, he was greeted by a host of primordial serpents all bowing down to him.

"All hail the Dark lord!" They all said in unison. This should've been a joyous moment; the curse of undeath had been lifted and he became the lord of this world, but somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, was a dark foreboding feeling that something was wrong.

I never truly remembered my life as a mortal. When I awoke in the Undead Asylum, there were only fragments of my mortal life etched upon my mind. I remembered that I was once a knight, serving a king and fighting for the innocent. I remembered my friend who lay beside my corpse after I had died.

'Victory never lasts…..' I also remember those words, but I can't remember who said them. Nevertheless, those words were true.

Arcane energies suddenly appeared all over Lordran. Streaks of blue and red lights began to dot the landscape and envelope all of Lordran. Then one-by-one, the Hollows disappeared; crumbling into dust and vanishing into the winds. All manner of undead began disappearing as well, their dying wounds reappearing and causing their deaths.

For Leandros, his suddenly felt warm liquid all over his abdominal area. He looked down and saw it. It was blood. The crimson liquid all but covered the mid-section of his magnificent golden armour that was forged from the soul of Ornstein the Dragonslayer. His arm lost its strength, and his Dragonslayer spear fell to the cold floor with a resounding clank.

Then he remembered how he died in life.

He and his fellow knights had been ambushed by brigands, and a spear was lodged in his belly.

"Just as the curse of undeath will vanish, so will all of those who are undead" One of the primordial serpents said as if this was meant to happen. Leandros glared at him, but was severely weakened by blood loss. Even now, he'd never actually thought he'd end up this way, dying as he was and he knew this death would be permanent. After all, he did just break the curse of undeath and freed all the Hollows.

The warrior fell to his knees, and soon his vision dulled. The dark lord glared at the Primordial Serpents and saw faces of indifference. One last breath in his body would've allowed him to kill all these serpents at a moment's notice; he would've if not for the serpent who spoke.

"Chosen Undead" It began, moving its face closer to the weakened body of Leandros. Its stench was always horrendous, like all the other serpents, only this one was up close. Thick and vile saliva poured down its mouth, splattering all over the ruined stone floor. "The destiny of the dark lord is not in this dying world, but in another. By destroying the curse of undeath, you have rid this world of all undead, but as a descendant of the Furtive Pigmy, you are forever bound to the darksign…"

'What?' The single word ran through his mind before his body could no longer stay conscious, and soon his world turned dark.

These creatures are sheep.

One of the goat demons see fit to rush towards me, a grave mistake. The demon swings its weapon at me, and I easily dodged away. Another one of them rushes forward at me, ready to cleave me in two with its poorly made sword of some kind. But his attack is clumsy and slow, giving me room to intercept his attack with my own. I would've killed it right then and there, but the other goat demon was quick to aid his brother.

Two more demons rush towards me, and I am truthfully getting bored and impatient. I pull out the Dragonslayer spear and began counting.

1…. One goat demon charges at me, such a clumsy beast. I avoid its horizontal swipe by ducking below it. I prepare to counter-attack, but…..

2…. Another demon attacks me, preventing me from counter-attacking the previous goat demon that had charged at me. I swiftly roll away from his vertical strike that was aimed at my head. These beasts are truly very slow.

3….. I hear the third goat demon try to attack me from behind. A big mistake. I roll away to the right to avoid its attack, and I respond in kind by thrusting the Dragonslayer spear and piercing its chest cavity. A pained demonic scream soon followed.

4… Apparently it was still alive. Golden streaks of lightning suddenly began dancing around the Dragonslayer spear, electrocuting the foul creature. Its demonic screams echo and I am forced to kill it faster by twisting my spear in its chest, effectively breaking its ribcage.

5… The creature dies swiftly as its foul blood drenched my spear. Three more of its kind rush towards me from behind, and the other two from before are closing the gap. A foolish attempt.

6… I throw the burnt corpse towards the two goat demons who'd previously attacked me. The corpse hits them with full force and sends both of them to the ground. I swiftly turn to the three behind me.

7… Dancing golden streaks of energy now covered my spear, illuminating the darkness of this thick forest. Like crazed fools they rush at me, their curved swords being flailed around. I glance behind me and see the two goat demons had now stood up from the ground. How annoying.

8…. The golden energy becomes even brighter now. Dancing electricity touched the ground and began to turn into smoldering ashes anything it touched. The five demons rush towards me. Although my features are hidden away by the visage of a lion, a smile had found its way to my lips.

9… Quick analogy told me that the three demons were closer, so leap towards them. I saw the surprise on their faces; they'd never imagined that I'd be the one to rush towards them. In the blink of an eye, I swing my spear horizontally; cleaving three heads at the same time.

10… I turn around and two more of them rushing towards me. Both were only 3 or 4 feet away. I swing the spear again, this time attacking the goat demons from below. One was able to jump, but the other had both its legs torn off by the sheer magnitude of the force I had applied. The one who jumped high, probably thought it was safe. In an instant, I release the stored energy within the spear, creating a dome of golden energy around me. It's previous illusion of safety had been reduced to smoldering ashes as its body was burnt by the golden energies of the Dragonslayer spear.

Ten seconds? I must've gotten slow.

"By Elune…..6 Satyrs….and he killed them all" The soft voice of a night elf spoke in a mixture of awe and fear.

"…..by himself…" Another voice added, clearly amazed by the spectacle she had witnessed a while ago.

They were hushed by their leader, Arein Shadowleaf, who continued to observe the strange human who had displaced an amazing amount of skill. They were night elf sentinels, they were the warriors who moved and crept in silence. The most hushed of whispers were only given in the form of commands given by the leader.

"Druid" Arein whispered to the druid who accompanied them. "Is there anything you can discern from that human?"

At first there was silence as the druid closed his eyes. It didn't take long before he opened his eyes once more.

There was a brief moment of silence before the druid finally answered.

"He's not human"

Before any of the night elves could even react, the warrior the had been watching, suddenly threw a bolt of golden lightning at their general direction, creating a massive explosion of golden energy.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1: Transcendence

If Leandros had been born in a peaceful kingdom, then he might've settled for a more diplomatic solution. If he his entire life hadn't been spent in years of war, then he might've settled for a more peaceful approach. If he hadn't spent all that time in Lordran with everything single thing trying to kill him, he might've stayed his blade. If all the time he'd spent wasn't on fighting and trying to retain his sanity, through violence, then maybe he wouldn't have thrown that sunlight spear at whatever it was he had heard in the bushes.

Maybe

Unfortunately for whoever it was in the bushes, Leandros was not in a good mood, and all the possible scenarios listed above didn't happen, not even close. Leandros was born and raised in a war torn nation, grew up as a warrior, became a knight, and spent his un-life in a very similar fashion to when he was still alive, just different enemies. So no, there would be no diplomacy or peace talks from him, just the crackling golden lightning from his spear would be ready to 'talk'.

Leandros turned his attention to where he'd previously thrown that Sunlight Spear. There was no smell of burnt flesh, which meant whatever was there was still alive right now and could retaliate if given the chance.

He may not have realized, but his ascension, had granted him with new abilities.

During his fight with those goat daemons, he had sensed the souls of other creatures just watching him from the bushes of the dark forest. He couldn't sense souls before, not that he needed to. Of course, all of this was unknown to him. What was him sensing the souls of foreign beings, he had mistaken for his battle instincts and sharper senses. True, undead such as himself had better senses than that of an average human, but no mere undead could've stood alone and killed all those Satyrs without much effort.

A rustling in the woods quickly took Leandros' attention, and his next course of action was to throw another Sunlight Spear at the area where he heard the rustling. A few seconds later, and it was raining arrows.

Majority of the arrows simply bounce off his golden armor. It was pathetic, such small arrows couldn't possible hope to pierce the titanite plates of his armor that was infused with the soul of one of the most powerful beings he'd ever faced, Dragonslayer Ornstein. So it was no surprise to him when the arrows, which seemed to be coming from everywhere, simply bounced off.

Although his armor was near indestructible, there were still several weak spots. Two of said spots now sported several arrows lodged in them.

If he could laugh, he would've, but sadly he couldn't laugh when there were three arrows lodged in his neck. Golden liquid seeped from the wounds, and Leandros recognized it instantly.

'Estus?' He thought, watching the golden liquid flow from his wounds. 'So I am still undead?'

Without hesitation, he grabbed one of the arrows on his throat and ripped it off, causing golden liquid to spray everywhere.

….

Vomit

Vomit was what most of the rookie night elves did when they saw what Leandros did to one of the arrows in his throat. Even their druid, who had the most experience, cringed at the sight. While most simply looked away, with the exception of their leader, Arein, who continued watching, but it was also painfully obvious, from her facial expressions, that she wasn't enjoying the sight.

What made the scene more brutal for the night elves, was the fact that their eyes were not tuned to see Estus for what it really was. To Leandros, an undead, Estus would appear as a golden liquid, but to the eyes of the Kaldorei, it appeared as blood. Hot, red blood.

Then Leandros ripped off another one.

More vomit.

…..

From prior experience, a lot of prior experience, Leandros was not amused at what he felt everytime he removed an arrow from his neck. It hurt, though not as much as it would a living creature, but it still hurt. Chunks of flesh would be pulled out everytime he yanked off an arrow from the vulnerable spots of his armor, causing estus to pour out.

After finally yanking out the third, and last, arrow in his neck, the dark lord was finally able to move his neck again. Of course, there were still some arrows imbedded at the back of his knee, which may become problematic if he just yanked those out like he did with the ones on his neck. They would prove to be problematic, because simply ripping them out would cause a great amount of damage to his knee. While that in itself was nothing to an undead who simply had to wait until his flesh would regenerate, it would also hinder his battle capabilities for quite some time until the flesh would regenerate.

'Damned archers' He thought.

….

All of them had their bows ready to fire another volley at the gold armored warrior. He still hadn't picked up their location, which meant that now was the best time to send another volley of arrows at him, for whatever good that did. They would've done so, if not for the voice that stopped them.

When the voice spoke, moonlight shined brighter, the entire landscape was bathed in bluish light.

"_Stop this violence" _A feminine voice said, ushering them to lower their weapons. The older warriors, who were well versed with the powers of the moon, instantly recognized the voice and the warmth that came with it. Those who were young simply felt at peace and calm. "_I will speak with the lost one"_

….

'Damn it!' Leandros mentally screamed as he fell down on the ground. His right knee had sustained quite a lot of damage, effectively preventing him from standing up. It wasn't permanent of course, damage such as this would heal in 2 or 3 hours, but that was the problem. Sitting here, defenseless, for 2 – 3 hours was not a good thing for anyone, undead or otherwise. 'I hate arrows'

It was at that moment that a huge beam of moonlight shined down upon him. The entire forest was illuminated by the radiant light; even Leandros was having a hard time seeing with so much light on his eyes.

"_What do you seek here, Dark Lord?" _

The voice somehow calmed him, to a point that he dropped his guard. The Dragonslayer spear fell to the ground with a thud, and the Sunlight spear on his other hand simply vanished.

'You know who I am?'

"_You were the chosen undead" The voice began. "Slayer of gods and dragons. Now you have ascended and became the Dark Lord, after killing Gwyn of course"_

'Who are you?'

There was no answer for several seconds, and Leandros actually thought that he was hallucinating all of this and that he had actually hollowed. It was a chilling thought, to have gone through all those obstacles and become a hollow in the end, but alas it wasn't the case and he was slightly grateful.

At the moment

"_I am Elune, lady of the moon_" and the word 'moon' was all Leandros needed to hear before groaning in annoyance, but decided to keep the reason as to why that is, to himself.

"How do you know who I am?"

"_Lord Gwyn was my husband…" _ Elune said softly, with a hint of sadness upon her tone. Leandros only raised an eyebrow at this, he had often pondered on who might have given birth to Gwynevere and Gwyndolin. "_I was there when he fought the dragons. I was there when he built Anor Londo. I was there when he hollowed and I was there when you put his soul to rest"_

"…..at the Kiln of the First Flame…"

"_Yes….but now I am curious as to why you are here?" _The moon goddess asked the newly crowned sun god. "_Are you not supposed to rule as the Dark Lord? To be the harbinger of a dying world?"_

"The primordial serpents told me that my journey doesn't end in that world" Leandros answered, his fists clinching with rage as he recalled the memory of 'dying'.

"_Then please I implore you, find the path with the least possible violence…..this world has had enough of that" _Elune said, almost pleadingly. "_I know that the word peace is foreign to you, but please try to learn it here"_

"I…I will try…but those creatures…..I don't know if I can reason with them" Leandros said, turning his head to the dead Satyrs. "And there are those who are still hiding among the trees"

"_The Satyrs are lost creatures, once they were peaceful, but they've been corrupted by dark magic" _Her voice, while beautiful with every sense of the word, was sad. Perhaps these things didn't deserve their fate of becoming goat demons? Maybe "_Those who hide among the trees, they are the Night Elves and they only attacked you because you attacked first."_

The last sentence happened to be at a deadpan tone.

"So I am to be…civil with them?"

"_Yes" _Was the last word she said before saying something so great a magnitude that most mortal men would've fallen from shock. But then Leandros was not a mortal man. "_Yes, I must tell you this as well. My relationship with Gwyn was not with him as Gwyn, but as the sun god. Therefore, as the one who took his place, you are my husband and I your wife, just as the moon is wife to the sun."_

The Dark Lord was not amused, not even a little bit. Then he realized that it was more of formalities among two deities, rather than an actual marriage. The sun and the moon did share their light, which meant this relationship with her was merely a symbol.

"_Do not put much thought into it. For your soul may be that of a god due to your ascendance, but without transcendence, your body will remain as it is now, immortal, but not eternal" _That was the last thing the dark lord heard before the moonlight disappeared, along with the soothing feeling it brought.

….

Aradan, the druid of the sentinel party that had been send to investigate a strange influx of magical energy, sat down and began focusing.

"What do you sense druid?" Arein asked the druid in their party. Not more than two hours ago, several druids in Darnassus had detected a large magical influx in this area. They were sent to investigate, and found the golden armored warrior who was fighting several satyrs. Although she didn't notice it before, due to the adrenaline rush and the part where she jumped out of the way of that golden lightning bolt, she noticed it now. That person, whoever he was, was seething with power. It was almost like standing against a raging current of magical energy. Simply put, it was overwhelming. How the blood elves would react to this, she didn't know.

"I sense four types of energy within him" Was the druid's reply, causing the nearby night elves to gasp in shock. No one, not even the great Malfurion himself or Cenarius, had more than one type of energy. For a being to have four types, it was almost impossible, but their druid had said, he himself was greatly perplexed. "I am familiar with two of those energies, but the other two are unknown to me"

"What are they?" Arein asked, still keeping her eyes fixed on the golden warrior.

"Raw magical power and….the other one is…..pure…demonic"

…..

He saw the wounds on his knees were beginning to heal, it seemed faster too. Now all he had to do was wait for his wounds to heal, then he might try looking for these Night elves and have a civil talk with them. Assuming, they don't fire another volley of arrows of course. In that situation, he would try to not fry them all alive with his sunlight spear.

But of course, his little plan went sideways when the night elves simply emerged from the trees. All of them had their bows aimed at him of course, and there was one of them whom he instantly recognized as a mage of some sort.

From every possible angle, there was a bow aimed right at him. Escape was impossible, not that he wanted to escape or needed to.

The current problem was: He didn't know how to react in this situation. He didn't know what to say to these beings, or what to do. He was lost at the prospect of a peaceful event. In fact, he can't even remember the last time he spoke to someone, discounting Elune of course. There was no time for talk, no time for idle chat when you were in a land that was filled with nightmarish creatures that just want to eat your soul.

Yes, he'd been surrounded by other beings before. Yes, they had bows pointed at him. No, the arrows didn't stay in place for long and were sent right at him. These beings, these night elves, appeared to be just standing there with their weapons aimed at him.

Then they started speaking a language that he did not understand. But he did partially understand the possible meaning everytime they spoke to each other in hushed whispers. Though he did not know the words, he knew the emotion behind each word, and he knew they were afraid of him. The slightest change in their gaze, the small yet sudden movements of their muscles, even the tone of their language, gave away their emotions.

Fear

It hung heavily in the air around them. Was it because of what he did earlier? With the sunlight spear or when he yanked out those arrows from his neck? Perhaps both? He did not particularly care.

'The path with the least amount of violence' Leandros repeated in his head as he tried in vain to think of several ways in which he wouldn't end up killing these creatures. 'That seems to be quite difficult at the moment'

'But I did promise' Finally, he had come up with an idea. It wasn't his best one, but at least it opened the path with the lesser bloodshed. Of course, the word 'lesser' is relative. Lesser bloodshed compared to what he had to face? Not a guarantee, but he would try his best.

….

Arein narrowed her eyes when she noticed the man had moved to another position. To those who were untrained, this was just simple movement to help ease the pain on the leg wounds, and there were a lot. But her eyes saw differently. This man was preparing to run. Being able to do that would be a feat in and of itself, but then this person had already done something impossible right before their eyes, she couldn't take any chances.

"Don't move!" She yelled at the man, positioning her bow in such a way that it was aimed right at the man's forehead. She had her doubts of course. This man, or whatever he is, previously had three arrows lodged in his throat, yet he did not die. No. He did the impossible. He lived through it, and even removed the arrows.

She watched as the man in golden armor brought both his hands together and uttered something that only she was able to hear.

"Wrath of the gods"

She had no time to react, none of them did, as a white sphere suddenly materialized around the gold-clad warrior and expanded outwards at an insane velocity. The effect was instant. All of them were thrown at least 20 meters away from the warrior, and to Arein, it felt like a wall had been thrown at her.

…Minutes Later…..

Concussion and disorientation, that was what was happening to her and her sentinel squad at the moment, but she was thankful that none of them died or fell off a cliff. She looked around and saw that they were simply dazed or disoriented; none of them were seriously injured.

'Damn it!' If she had time to, she would've vented out her anger by punching a nearby tree. Unfortunately, time had run out for their little skirmish. Just then, a messenger appeared in front of her.

"Lady Arein!" The messenger began. "The village of Atrosus is being attacked by a Satyr Warband. All sentinels within the vicinity are to aid in defeating the Satyrs their"

"At once!" In truth, she would've loved to continue the chase against the gold armored warrior, but when a more dangerous threat appears, there would be no choice. For now, the case would have to be stopped. Besides that, she was VERY curious on why Elune personally stopped them, but the answers to her questions would have to wait. "Sentinels form up!"

….SOMEWHERE

While he was incapable of feeling physical pain, he was still very limited by the limitations of the physical form. Thus, when the tendons located behind his kneecaps were still FUBAR, he couldn't run properly and he guessed that all this running might be causing even more damage. At least he didn't kill anyone.

Now he was lost in some forest in a strange land filled with hostile creatures. How could things get any worse? A familiar hunger had begun to gnaw at him since his arrival here. He'd tried to suppress it, but hunger can never quenched for too long, nor could it be suppressed. The dark hand needed to feast.

In his moment of distraction, something was able to launch a surprise attack at Leandros. A large hulking creature, reminiscent of a bear, came out of the thick bushes and began attacking him wildly. In his surprised and injured state, Leandros could not defend himself on time. The bear-like creature's (Furbolg) massive arms flailed and hit him directly on the shoulder. A resound crack was heard, followed by the dark lord's body colliding against a nearby tree.

'Oh shit' With both his arms broken, defense was impossible. The Dragonslayer spear was on the ground, a few meters away from him, but he couldn't grab it. He would soon pay for this temporary lapse however, when the massive creature grabbed his left arm and threw his body towards another tree. This time, he went right through it.

His body fell to the ground like a limp ragdoll. Though the armor was unharmed, the same couldn't be said for the body that was encased inside. With the extensive damage to his bones and muscles, he wouldn't be moving for a long time.

That would've been fine if there wasn't a giant armored bear-thing trying to kill him for no good reason. To make matters worse, the dark hand was becoming more unstable. It wanted to feast on souls, and it wanted to do it right now.

He turned his head to the right and saw the bear creature approaching him with what seemed to be a giant log in its hands. He briefly contemplated on why it hadn't used that thing before.

'I wonder if there's a bonfire around here' He thought, resigning himself to a possible 'death'. The creature raised the log and swung downwards. Leandros didn't even bother closing his eyes as he waited for the log to hit his body. Heck he'd been through worse.

But strangely, it never came. He blinked and a figure standing beside him, and somehow stopped the log? Yet, he recognized this presence. But his moment of recognition was short-lived, however, when the bear creature suddenly screamed and dropped the log. Leandros looked closer and saw that it now sported a massive horizontal wound on its chest.

There was no mistaking it. This thing was the same as he was. What it did next only confirmed his suspicion.

The figure lunged forward, its right hand extended backwards and glowing a familiar white light, before extending its right hand forward to grab the face of the bear creature. What happened next was a horrific scene in which one of the two entities that previously fought, had its souls devoured by the other.

'What's a darkwraith doing here?'

AND CUT!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I was actually planning on abandoning this story, but I felt that maybe it still had some potential. After all, it's the only crossover between warcraft and darksouls. So I'll try my best to continue writing if people are actually interested in this.

Chapter 2: Darkwraith

Leandros sighed as he leaned against a tree by a small stream, which led deeper into the forest of Ashenvale if one were to follow it. His Dragonslayer spear was lying right beside him – on the cold forest soil – cackling with golden energies ever so slightly, and glowing with a golden aura that was akin to the light magic of paladins. He'd been on many situations such as this back in Lordran, and not once did he falter or fear for his own. Now, he was not so sure anymore.

In Lordran, he had a goal to strive towards. An end point where he needed to arrive at no matter the cost and that was how he succeeded there. He couldn't stop or simply quit, the fate of the entire world depended on his success and failure was not an option. Here, in this mysterious land he found himself in, there was no goal. Heck he didn't even know how he got here in the first place. There was nothing to strive towards, and no consequence for standing idly by. He had no purpose here, and that gave Leandros a strange feeling of emptiness, something he had not felt since killing Sif.

'But I have no choice now do I?' He thought as he stood up from where he sat, and grabbed the Dragonslayer spear. If he could, then he would've wanted to die, but that was sadly not possible. But there was no use crying over spilt milk now was there? Darkstalker Kaathe mentioned that his destiny as Darklord was to be in another world. 'Was he talking about this world? How do I even know this isn't just another continent?'

With no goal in sight, Leandros opted to make one for himself. Finding out why he was in this place was his current top priority and, like before, he would stop at nothing to find out. His first priority was getting out of this forest and hopefully finding a settlement if there were any. Another thing that Leandros found strange was the fact that he'd been rescued earlier by a Darkwraith. He remembered the city of New Londo and the Darkwraiths that dwelled there, and they weren't as helpful as the one that saved him from more physical damage. That was another thing he needed to find out about: Why did the Darkwraith help him and how did it get here?

'How strange a situation I now find myself in' The Darklord mused as he took his first steps into the unknown forest in hopes of finding an exit somewhere. Unbeknownst to him, he was walking straight into the Satyr warband's path.

…..

Arein Shadowleaf huffed in exhaustion as she fired another shot from her bow, before rolling out of the way of a massive magical bolt that had been fired at her position by a warlock. This was no mere Satyr warband, this was a Legion attack; evident from the daemons and the warlocks present. Arein fired another volley – along with her allies – at an approaching band of Satyrs and Fiends. The arrows hit their marks, but the demons were resilient and continued their charge. More arrows flew; each was infused with lunar magic – allowing it to pierce through armor.

Within moments, the Satyrs and demons had already closed the gap and were engaging the night elves in melee combat. Night Elf reinforcements weren't coming for a while, and so it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the warband.

"Fall back to higher ground!" Arein commanded. Her troops – the Sentinels – obeyed without question and began their tactical retreat. The archers formed ranks and strategically fired volleys with each row of warriors that retreated, allowing them ample time to escape and regroup.

Heaps and heaps of demons and Satyrs fell, but it was as if their numbers were endless. Even if reinforcements did arrive, it would all be too late to save the village. In the very least, they were able to save many of the innocent villagers, but there were many still, who were stranded in the village.

Atrosus would burn, and she couldn't do anything about it.

'SHIT!' She mentally screamed as she watched from afar, the burning village of Atrosus and the screams of its inhabitants. But this was no time for mourning the dead, that comes after. Arein steadied herself and took a long deep breath. "How long till the reinforcements arrive from Darnassus?"

"30 minutes…at the most" One of her subordinates answered. Arein nodded and then began to contemplate on her next course of action.

"Sentinels!" She called out. "Until the reinforcements arrive, we will keep killing as many of these bastards as we can! Am I understood!?"

"Yes ma'am!" They all resounded, their hearts renewed with vigor strewn from the will of vengeance.

"Let's kill"

…

In the distance, Leandros saw what he assumed were lights from a busy city. As he moved closer, the familiar smell of death raged across the air – a smell Leandros was oh so accustomed to. Soon, he could feel the souls of newly slain traversing through the winds of this place, and that was when he realized why there were very bright lights. Whatever settlement was in the distance, it was most definitely burning to the ground. From where he stood, he could hear no screams, but life and unlife as a warrior honed one's instincts on war, and he knew what was going on, but it was none of his business.

Somewhere in the distance, Leandros knew that a settlement was being attacked and now that settlement was being razed. There were several reasons as to why he shouldn't bother going there. One of them was that he couldn't speak the language here, so any hope of communication when he gets there is zero – if there really was a battle, and he was very sure of that, then it just ensures that he'll probably be attacked on sight. Another reason was that, if he went to that place, then he'll undoubtedly end up involved in whatever conflict was going on between two parties. The final reason was that he honestly didn't care so why should he risk more injuries?

'Screw that' He mused, turning around and walking towards another direction that led away from the fires. Unfortunately, fate was not kind to the Darklord. Within seconds, he was immediately surrounded by what seemed to hundreds of the goat demons and, with them, more demons. Leandros sighed in annoyance at how he was now in the situation he'd so desperately hoped to avoid. 'I hate this….'

Fighting them all head on was out of the question. He'd certainly kill a lot, but he would ultimately be defeated. Surrender was even worse, because he couldn't communicate with them. The third option? Well he wasn't much of a tree-lover anyway…..

"Fire tempest" He said softly as his left hand was set ablaze by the living flame of pyromancy. The demons saw this as an act of aggression and all charged towards him from every direction possible. Leandros smirked; they were making his job a lot easier. With great force, he slammed his left hand into the ground and unleashed the greatest power of his Pyromancy, the dread Fire Tempest. In an instant, thousands of gigantic pillars of flame erupted from the ground and setting ablaze a large section of the entire forest (By large I mean a few kilometers). The heat produced by the Fire Tempest was so great in magnitude that all moisture in the air and soil evaporated in an instant, even the great trees of Ashenvale were reduced to ashes in mere milliseconds of exposure to the great power of pyromancy. The great pillars of flame lit up the sky ablaze, transforming the night sky into something akin to a blazing inferno.

…..

"By Elune…..what is that?" A frightened Kaldorei villager muttered as she, and the remaining sentinels and villagers, watched the turn red with blazing gigantic pillars of fire. Even from their distance, they felt it. The great untamed power that emanated from that firestorm in the distance, and they felt the sudden disappearance of life, crushed in an instant. They felt the hundreds of demons, forest creatures and trees; all vanish inside the blinding light that was emitted by the pillars of fire. Fear was etched upon the faces of the Kaldorei people, who stood by watching as the firestorm died down gradually until it disappeared entirely.

"Such power…." A druid said, unable to comprehend the power behind those pillars of flame that illuminated the night sky, along with the entirety of Ashenvale forest. He himself had seen many things during the third war; displays of power that made him feel powerless in its face. What he'd witnessed earlier was something he'd never seen before. A power that was so incomprehensively powerful, it dwarfed any power he'd ever known. "Could it be a demon lord?"

"Maybe…." Arein could only guess at this point. There was no telling what creature could summon such a horrific power, and she didn't want to find out either. There was a chance that whatever did that wasn't hostile, but what if it was? She didn't want to risk it. If it was hostile, then what could she possible do but die in the face of such power?

…..

There was only one word that could possibly describe what Leandros was feeling right now, one word to completely and truly describe what he was at the moment. His body lay sprawled on the ashes of his own making, motionless as the cinders flew in the wind and disintegrated into the night air. What was once a deep and thick forest was now a barren field of embers and ashes, even the stream had been vaporized in the wake of the Fire Tempest. What was the one word that could describe him? Confused, utterly and terribly confused at what just happened.

First of all, that was the biggest Fire Tempest he'd ever seen and made. The biggest one before only had a few meter radius, and the flame pillars were the size of small trees. What he'd conjured up earlier could've probably destroyed the entirety of Blighttown. Secondly, why couldn't he do that before? It would've saved him from a lot of headaches back in Lordran. Thirdly, why did it seem to drain his stamina? Never before has he experienced any strain from using pyromancy.

'Well…..I can't stay here forever now can I?' Mused the Darklord as he began to stir, causing the ashes, which had accumulated on his person, to simply float away. The undead lord shakenly stood up, with each movement slow and rugged, an effect of the exhaustion he was now experiencing. His first steps after standing were weary ones, and it looked like he would fall down at any time. It took the Darklord only a few moments before his pace quickened, and his strides more powerful. 'Now…to get out of this place…'

…..

In the burning village of Atrosus, the warband had all but stopped when many of their fellows were burnt to dust in an instant. Their leader, the orc warlock Razagor, had ordered a large contingent of Satyrs and demons to the area just outside Atrosus, and they did not return. In fact, they all felt their fiery deaths. With great rage, Razagor ordered his entire warband to move outside the village and, hopefully, find the people responsible for the deaths of so many of his soldiers.

"FIND THEM!" He commanded, as the Satyrs and demons dispersed into the darkness of Ashenvale forest. In mere moments, however, the screams of his underlings started to fill the night-air. The sound of flying arrows resounded and it finally dawned upon the Orcish warlock that they were now trapped. Reinforcements had already arrived from Darnassus, and it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed by the assault of the night elves. "DAMN THEM! KILL THEM ALL!"

His rage was his own downfall, as he was too blinded to notice the massive glaive that was flying right towards him. Soon, the screams and gurgles of demons would fill the night.

…..

Later:

"How many dead?" Shani Moontalon, commander of the sentinel reinforcements sent from Darnassus, asked in a very morbid tone. There was no victory on this night, no song of triumph, nor the sounds of horns blowing to herald a great victory. She herself was not aware of how many have fallen, but her eyes gave her all she needed to know. The dead were beyond what could be counted to bring grief. Half of the entire population – women and children included – were slain by the Satyrs and their demonic allies.

"We….we…." The voice of Arein was faltering, as tears threatened to fall like waterfalls from her delicate eyes. Too many of their kin had been killed, and she blamed herself for it. If only they hadn't been distracted by that Gold Armored warrior, then they probably would've arrived sooner and mount a proper defense. But it was over, and the only thing they could've done was avenge the fallen. "…..there are 500 fallen warriors…we're still accounting for the civilian casualties…."

"Captain I want you to set up a hunting party to hunt down any stragglers" Shani commanded. "Show them no mercy, for they deserve none"

"It will be done…" Arein replied, signaling her own troops to follow her into the darkness of the forest to track down the remaining Satyrs and demons. Her grief had turned to rage, and that rage will be unleashed upon the surviving demons.

…..

After many hours of constant waking, the only thing Leandros could see for miles on end was more trees. Yet, with each step he took, there was a strange feeling that came upon him. A feeling that he'd only felt back in Lost Izalith, where the wretched aura of demons was permeating the air. This place had the exact same smell. Bereft of any knowledge of the land, Leandros entered the darkness of Felwood.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3: The Dark Lord of Sunlight

Leandros grunted as he fell another one of those massive bear-like creatures. There were at least 10 of them surrounding him, and, so far, he'd killed 3. These creatures were strong; stronger than most enemies he'd faced in this land so far. Their berserk nature was also something Leandros had noticed, seeing it as their greatest weakness. They were huge and powerful, but they were nothing more than mindless beasts, who were incapable of forming even the basest fighting strategies when fighting, and, thus, were nothing more than raging animals. Three of them charged at him blindly, eyes filled with unbridled fury, Leandros responded by summoning the inner powers of the Dragonslayer spear and unleashing it upon the three beasts. A giant bolt of golden lightning flew from the tip of his massive spear and electrocuted the three beasts. The magically-infused lightning was so powerful that Leandros could see their skin slowly turning to cinders as the lighting burnt their flesh. However, no matter how dangerous and ferocious they were, these creatures were just animals and, thus, did not need to suffer. Leandros summoned a _Great Fireball _on his right hand and threw it towards the screaming creatures. The resulting explosion was so great in magnitude that the creatures were instantly vaporized, their flesh turning into dust in a matter of seconds.

The remaining creatures roared at him as they too charged towards Leandros with the same amount of fury as their recently diseased comrades. This time, the dark lord was having none of their nuisance as he charged at the four remaining beasts. One leaped at him from the front and another from the right, while the other two simply maintained their charge as they neared the golden-armored warrior. Leandros somersaulted into the air and threw his spear at the one of the beasts, who were charging at him, killing it instantly as the spear skewered it through its mouth. When he landed on the grass, the two leaping beasts were mere inches from his face before he uttered…

"_Wrath of the Gods" _

The two enraged furbolgs were no match for the awesome power that is the _Wrath of the Gods _as a shockwave of white energy was unleashed from Leandros' being and pushed both of them away, hurling into the trees. One of them had its bones crushed when it collided against a boulder – a sickening crack echoed – and the other was pushed through several trees, injuring it greatly. The creature howled in pain, but was immediately silenced when Leandros' spear found its way to the creature's chest, killing it instantly. Leandros walked towards the giant corpse and removed his spear – still crackling with golden lightning – from its chest.

'Wherever I am…it's all the same. I have to fight again and again every single day until nothing is alive anymore!' Leandros mused in anger, thinking back to his lonely days in Lordran. It was at this moment that Leandros suddenly heard a scream. His ears perked at the sound and realized it was the scream of a woman and…a child? The dark lord was instantly on the move as he grabbed his spear and ran towards the source of the scream. Killing hundreds of thousands of warriors was tolerable, but killing children was something he could not stand.

…..

Diana Sutherland was beyond terrified at this point as she, along with her younger sister, ran away from the enraged Wildkins and Furbolgs that had attacked the caravan she'd joined. Merely 3 weeks ago, a merchant caravan, composing of Dwarves and other Alliance people, had passed through her village. The caravan master, Duthroc, started asking people if they were interested in joining his caravan since he apparently needed extra hands to act as loaders and unloaders of the goods. Diana was hesitant to join at first since she had to take care of her younger sister, who was a mere 10 years old, but then the caravan master mentioned that he was going straight for Darnassus and it was at that moment Diana caved and joined the caravan.

With the many Alliance warriors, mercenaries and adventurers in the caravan, it was supposed to be a certainty that nothing would dare attack them. Oh how wrong she was when hundreds of wild creatures in the forest of Felwood descended upon them and tore apart the ranks of soldiers, who fought valiantly, but were simply outnumbered 10:1. Amidst the chaos, Diana grabbed her sister's hand and broke into a sprint towards the trees. Yet her fortune was not as vast she thought when a giant Wildkin spotted them and began to chase after the sibling duo, who had no weapons of any kind.

The Wildkin that had chased after them was a behemoth that stood at over 7 meters tall. It was so huge that it simply pushed aside the trees in its path as it continued its chase on Diana and her sister. With a mighty roar, the Wildkin uprooted a tree and threw it towards the sisters, who ducked down in time to avoid being crushed by the tree. But now they were effectively trapped between a rock and a hard place, because a crazed giant Wildkin was still charging right at them. Was she going to die here?

There was an ancient myth that, when humans finally reach their breaking point; where the fear engine ceases to function in the midst of great adversity, a beast shall awaken from deep within the psyche. This beast acts purely on instinct, it recognizes no ally and seeks only to live and protect what belongs to it. A deep and primal rage that exists in all creatures, just waiting to break free.

Diana grabbed her sister by the shoulders and tossed tiny bodice into the other side of the fallen tree, where she could hide by the shrubs and overgrown roots. That was the last sane act Diana performed before her instincts overrode her logical and frightened mind. Grabbing the Mithril dagger she'd kept in her pouch, Diana bellowed a war cry that gave even the Wildkin a brief pause, but it soon continued its charge. Without a hint of fear, Diana began sprinting to the left, drawing the Wildkin away from her sister's position. The Wildkin, bereft of any strategic thinking, chased after her like a cat would a mouse. The creature leapt forward, hoping to catch Diana in its grasps and crush her beneath its monstrous frame, but the human girl ducked beneath it. The end result was a Wildkin having its face on a direct collision course with a giant tree.

*Boom*

She knew the Wildkin barely even sustained any damage from that stunt she'd just pulled, so her next course of action was to hopefully find a way to injure the creature. Her puny 9 inch long dagger could probably do some damage if used right and stabbed in the proper places, but the last time she'd fought against anything was almost 2 years ago; her skills had already dulled greatly as time passed by. But hers and her sister's life was on the line, mostly her sister, if she failed now.

So what she did next was probably the most stupid idea she'd ever conjured. Being that she leapt forward, whilst the Wildkin was recovering from its little collision with a tree, and buried her dagger deep into the flesh of the creature's lower back, where the spine would be. The effect was instant; the Wildkin panicked as it noticed that it could no longer use its legs and, in its panicked state, swiped away Diana with one arm, sending her hurling into the trees. Her little sister, Saien, saw this and screamed; thinking that her sister had died.

…..

Leandros arrived just in time to rescue a small child from being surrounded by more of those bear-creatures again. The little girl would've been torn to shreds had he not arrived and slain the bear-creatures.

The little girl frantically began pulling on his armored arm and was crying and screaming as she did so. The Darklord knew not what this girl was muttering and blabbing about since he didn't know what language these people spoke, but he opted to let her pull him anyways. Saien pulled him just over the tree to the place where her sister had fought the Wildkin in single combat. Leandros instantly stiffened when he saw a giant creature with a bird-like face and the body of a giant, but instantly relaxed his poise when he noticed that it couldn't seem to move its lower extremities. He moved his head a little to the side and saw the dagger that had been buried in the creature's lower back.

'It must've damaged the creature's spine…..how clever' he thought as the child dragged him to a bruised and battered body that lay beside a tree. 'Still alive…..but too weak to live…'

"Help!" Saien yelled, which shocked Leandros greatly for a completely unrelated reason.

He understood her! He'd heard that language before. The people of the Great Swamp spoke that language.

"Her?" leandros asked, pointing towards the body that lay between the borders of life and death.

"Yes!" The little girl answered. The Darklord stared blankly at the body on the forest floor and examined her physical shell. Almost all her bones were broken and she was suffering from internal bleeding. She'd probably survive for about an hour before she would succumb to her injuries.

"I can't save her…" He answered. Before the little girl could react, several howls and roars all echoed beyond the forest canopy, just behind the trees in the distance. There were too many of them, and he couldn't fight them all while defending a child at the same time. He grabbed the child's arm and began sprinting away, all the while ignoring the child's plea to help her sister.

Leandros looked back over his shoulder and saw the swarms of wild creatures now chasing him, and that was his exact mistake, he looked back. With his attention divided, Leandros never noticed the massive tree trunk that was flying straight for him. The tree shattered upon impact with his body, sending him flying across the forest floor and landing in a small pool of still water. Saien was not as lucky.

Though Leandros took the brunt of the impact, Saien's small frame was launched so high into the air and fell into a particularly sharp branch. She was impaled through the stomach and the chest, killing her instantly.

'No' He never saw the child die, but being an undead granted one the ability to feel death in one's immediate vicinity. A cold rage gripped Leandros as he stood up from the puddle. He never knew the girl, much less truly care for her, but the death of a child was always something that brought him much grief. When he was still alive, he had always refrained from harming children whenever his lord would command him to attack a neighboring faction's village or town. Those who killed children under his command soon faced death by his hand, and that was perhaps why he was eventually betrayed by his own bloodthirsty troops, who killed, raped and looted as they pleased.

The Darklord stood up slowly, gripping his spear so tightly that golden lightning began streaking across the forest, electrocuting anything it'd hit. With a sigh, Leandros broke into a sprint; charging directly towards the horde of wild creatures with his Dragonslayer spear crackling with golden energy and his left hand surging with the dark energies of Soul-drain, the Dark hand.

….. AN HOUR LATER…..

Rumira Whitefade, assassin by profession and warrior by necessity, was among the many adventurers, who were hired by the night elves to help hunt the stragglers of the recent attack on Atrosus. She, along with several other alliance aligned adventurers, was sent to hunt down the stragglers that made their way into Felwood.

When her hunting party had arrived, Rumira was quick to expect some sort of ambush from the demons, but there was nothing. The corrupted forest of Felwood was awfully quiet. She'd ventured here before, back when she'd just started out being an adventurer, there were many wild and dangerous creatures then, but now the forest seemed empty, almost as if it was a mere graveyard filled with legion-corrupted trees and rivers. There were no roars from the mad Furbolgs, no screeches from the Wildkins and no war cries from the demon stragglers.

"Something's not right here" She muttered to herself, but those who heard her instantly agreed, there was something terribly wrong with Felwood.

"Keep moving!" Their Kaldorei commander commanded, causing some of the warriors to tense up and continue moving. The hunting party consisting of 50 sentinels, 5 druids and 3 assassins continued their trek through the seemingly desolate forest, where even the birds refused to make any sound. They continued their pursuit, following the demons' tracks through the muddy soil, until they all heard a scream.

"**AAARGHH!"**

"That's definitely a demon" One particularly young sentinel saw fit to add as they all turned their heads to the direction from where the scream originated. Anyone who's fought demons before would've become familiar with the natural voice of these creatures; from their war cries to their screams of fear and pain, this was a scream of fear.

"Spread out and head towards that direction, and be careful of possible ambushes" Their commander said. Rumira was instantly poised for battle as she leaped upwards to the branches of the nearest tree and began running and jumping through the thick mass of leaves and branches. She continued doing so until it reached a point where the air began to feel heavy with the stench of death and burnt corpses, even the smell of some strange magic hung heavily in the air. Rumira quickened her pace and even drew both of her Mithril daggers just in case something tried to attack her; whatever it was they heard and are following, it was very close.

Then suddenly, a black armored hand grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her down to the forest floor.

'How?' That was all that Rumira could think of as she was harshly pulled downwards. Her head collided with one of the tree's branches as her body fell, like a ragdoll, and knocked her out cold.

As her eyes closed, Rumira noted the disturbing number of black armored figures surrounding her downed form.

…..

When the other members arrived, all they could see were the piles upon piles of corpses. Each of them were burned and mutilated beyond recognition. The bodies of Satyrs, Demons, Furbolgs and Wildkins all littered the forest clearing, where a battle had obviously occurred. They counted the dead and found that there were 581 corpses, discounting the ones they simply could not consider a 'corpse' anymore.

Something killed all these creatures, and they had no idea just what it was.

…...A DAY LATER…..

When she finally awakened from her state of slumber, Rumira certainly was not expecting to find herself unbound with her weapons still beside her. Her vision was still quite blurry, but she could feel her weapons and could still fight when needed. She slowly stood up, noticing the running water beside her and the cold hard floor.

'I'm in a cave' She concluded, taking slow deliberate steps to hopefully lessen the sound of her footsteps. Just by the cave entrance, she noticed, was a very tall figure clad in gold armor, with a red plume just behind the face area. Resting beside the tall figure was an equally tall golden spear; she probably couldn't lift it if she tried. The man, she concluded, was resting by a fire, and, by her standards as a warrior, left himself completely open to attack.

As an assassin, Rumira already found at least 50 ways where she could easily kill this person, but her instincts, honed over a course of a hundred years, told her that something simply wasn't right. Something was moving in the darkness, she could feel it, watching her every step, just waiting for the perfect moment to show itself.

"Be…..calm…I…..won't…..kill…" The golden armored man suddenly said.

…..


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4: Unbroken Will

When was the last time she ever fought for her life or the lives of those around her? Diana looked back to her memories of the second incursion of the Burning Legion She remembered fighting with the orcs and elves. She remembered the towering figure of Archimonde as he passed through the ranks upon ranks of warriors, who fought valiantly. She was there then, fighting the seemingly endless tide of demons and fell creatures from the Twisting Nether. Yet she survived. Despite all the odds that were stacked against them, they fought and they won.

She remembered standing behind the lines of battle, behind the ranks of footmen. At the very front of them was Jaina Proudmore, the founder of Theramore. She was a beacon of hope for them during that battle; a visage of golden light standing tall against the corrupting darkness. Diana sailed with her from Lordaeron, fought beside her at the base of the World Tree and served her briefly in Theramore, until the orcs, led by Rexxar and Thrall, attacked. She was forced to fight for the Admiral, Jaina's father, and was nearly killed by the attacking orcs. She survived only because an ogre fell over her, essentially cutting her off from the battle.

She had never fought another creature after that battle. After that battle, the warrior inside simply slept so the caregiver could take its place. Her sister was so young back then, so fragile and so in need of her care. Their mother died of the undead plague in Hearthglen. Diana watched in horror as her mother turned into an undead creature right before her eyes. Prince Arthas saved her and her sister that fateful day, but their mother had perished along with the infected villagers.

After the burning of Stratholm, Diana armed herself and joined Jaina Proudmore's expedition to the land of Kalimdor.

'Where's my sister?' She asked herself. There were many voices around her, and her blurred vision could make out many figures surrounding her. She could not move, and almost every part of her body was hurting badly. 'What the hell's going on?' She would've screamed if she could, but she found that she couldn't.

Then the memories came flooding back.

…..

"What happened here?" A night elf sentinel asked no one in particular, as she approached the broken body of a human female. The girl was alive, but barely, with only the power of healers and priests keeping her alive. The back of her head was bleeding severely and it was visually noticeable how many of her bones were probably broken. Of course, once they got back to Darnassus, this human would probably survive.

"She was probably part of that caravan that was attacked by wild creatures" The healer answered. They had seen the scattered remains of the wooden boxes, dead horses, and supplies that were all part of the caravan. The bodies of the dead lay around the wreckage, most of them half eaten or mangled beyond recognition. "I guess her injuries had something to do with the paralyzed Wildkin, but I'm not sure. I think she tried to fight the Wildkin, got hit, and got thrown over there on that tree."

The trip back to Darnassus went on quietly. The hunting party that was sent to hunt down the demon stragglers, was now returning from Felwood, bringing with them the inured survivors of the caravan, among them Diana. Somehow, she had survived her grave injuries. Somehow, death could not reach her. Somehow, she lived.

Along the forest path they walked, carrying the injured. The sun had already arisen, it was dawn, and yet the warriors felt no joy in the morning warmth. No triumphant feelings from their hearts that had arisen from their victory against the demons, there was only lamentation for the deaths of so many. In Atrosus, the flames had died out, and the corpses of the people now lay among the ashes on the ground. The Night elves wept bitterly at this loss of life. The Burning Legion was defeated and pushed back, true, but there were always those who stayed behind. Demons who stayed because it suited their fancy. They never thought such fell creatures would rally and create suitable fighting force.

'The legion will pay for this!' Arein screamed in her mind, though deep down she knew there was nothing she could do against the burning legion. She had led the defenses that night, all those lost lives were once under her care, but she failed; now they rest on the cold ashen floor.

Then suddenly she remembered the sudden immolation that lit up the night sky and burned much of the forest around Atrosus. They all felt it; even those who were far away could feel the power that emanated from that blaze, a power that was simply beyond anything they had ever known and Arein knew, deep down, a new and very powerful figure had just revealed itself to Kalimdor, an entity they had not known about.

…..

"You're very lucky to have survived that ordeal." Diana heard a soothing voice suddenly speaking. She tried turning her head to face the source of the voice, but found that her neck was wrapped in a cast, which prevented her from moving the appendage. Only her eyes could move at this point, and she did see the source of the voice. It was a Kaldorei female with short bluish hair. She wore burgundy robes, which covered her entire body, except her head. Also, Diana had never seen a Night Elf healer before. "Majority of your bones were broken, but thank Elune you spine was not one of them. You'll be making full recovery in a few months, so just stay here and rest. Although you're not exactly going anywhere either…"

The healer trailed off and started talking to herself, and all the while Diana could only think of her sister and what might've happened to her.

"…oh and your sister's dead!" The healer said before walking off.

"What?"

…..

Meanwhile:

…..

"What happened in there was not your fault." Aradan, the druid of Arein's own sentinel unit, said in an attempt to sooth the distraught captain. He was there with her during the defense of Atrosus. He stood by her side when the hordes of demons broke through the village walls and slaughtered all they saw. When the night sky was set ablaze by the strange flames, he was there by her side and he knew that it wasn't Arein's fault that all those villagers died. "You did your duty as any loyal warrior would've done, and no more could be asked you. Do not hurt yourself over what might've happened."

"That's exactly why I'm in grief my dear druid. I did everything I could've done and yet it wasn't enough! I feel so damn weak and useless right now!" Arein yelled, storming off to her personal chambers and slamming the door shut. Inside, Arein slumped against the cold door and hugged her knees, crying in silence. She knew, the moment that messenger had informed her of the attack on Atrosus, that the village would fall to the flames.

…..

In Lordran, existence was the most fickle thing one could possibly have. When one lives in a world where almost everything in every corner wants to kill you, one's sense becomes honed to the extreme. Leandros became the lord of Lordran, the Dark Lord of a dying world. To be the strongest entity in a world where all creatures evolved to kill, that was what Leandros achieved. All this meant that the silenced footsteps of a supposed master of stealth rung like bells in an empty field for Leandros.

Rumira was good, but Leandros already heard her even before she got within 5 meters of him. She tried to sneak, but he made no move to surprise her. He'd already seen her weapons when she was still unconscious, and found them quite appalling to behold. She couldn't kill him even if he wanted to die.

Then she got closer….

"Be…..calm…..I….wont….kill" He said, not moving from his position on the ground in front of the beach. His spear was maybe a good two feet away from his right hand, but he wouldn't need it if this….thing…..was hostile. It was taller than a human, and its skin had a strange burgundy-violet pigment to it that he'd never seen on any creature before, much less one that resembled a human in body structure. Then there was the color of her hair, it was bluish in color, much like the sky, and her ears were very elongated and pointed. This creature held a strange beauty to it no doubt.

"What do you want with me?" Rumira asked, despite her current situation, gathering information was something any trained-assassin would've done first. This man was an unknown variable, and she didn't like unknowns. Still, she knew that, if it boils down to it, fighting wasn't exactly and option since she's already detected several other figures just hiding in the darkness; somehow managing to elude her senses for the majority of the time. She was surrounded, Rumira noted. "Did you kill those demons in the forest?"

"Yes" Came the short reply. His voice was…strange. Raspy and almost sickly, but somehow had an air of confidence and wisdom to it. It was like the voice of an old tired warrior speaking to her, and yet it was cold and somehow…sad….in a way. Then he spoke again. "Those…..things…..killed…..little….girl"

'Why does he speak like that?' Was the first thing that came into Rumira's mind, which brought out interesting new possibilities. There were many things she found strange about this person just by physical appearance alone. Firstly, his armor was of a design she'd never seen before. She could sense some faint magical energies in it, but it was an energy that she'd never felt before. Second was his height. This man, or whatever he was, was at least 2 feet taller than the average human, making him as tall as the night elves in this regard. She'd never seen a human this tall before. Third was his spear. Aside from the sheer size, the spear seemed to cackle with golden energies, which held a similar signature to the energies she felt in his armor, only the energies in his spear was greater in magnitude. With that in mind, Rumira opted to continue the conversation. "That's impossible! No person could kill all those demons alone, even if they are powerful."

"Your….opinion….changes….nothing" The warrior responded, still looking out into the distance, at the constant motion of the waves on the surface of the sea. "I….killed…those…things"

"Wait…who are you?"

…..

"I am Leandros….." He said. There was a long silence as she waited for a continuation to his introduction, but apparently that was all he wanted to say. Nothing about this home, or where he came from, and nothing about his strange armor or the energies that accompanied it, this man was an utter mystery. She wanted to find out more about him, but found that she may be overstepping some boundaries. She still had yet to find out why he kept her alive.

Rumira was no fool. She knew that if he wanted to; he could've killed her back then in that forest whilst she lay unconscious. No, this man kept her alive for a reason that she could not yet fathom.

"What do you want with me?" She finally said, and yet Leandros made no answers, simply staring out into the distance. He didn't answer for a long time, and she just stood there, patiently waiting for his raspy voice again.

"I….want…..learn…..from…..you" He finally spoke, shocking Rumira with his words. After that, he stood up to his full height and faced Rumira, who stood just a little below his jaw-line. To her, he was tall and extremely intimidating. His presence alone was menacing, and his deathlike silence was disturbing to behold. Rumira took a tiny step back, but otherwise maintained her composure. "Everything…of….this….land"

"What a strange request….." Rumira answered softly beneath her breath. In truth, all she wanted to do at the moment was run off into the darkness of the forest. Yet she couldn't shake off the mystery that came with this man. His aura, his silence, it all made her very curious about this person, and it was obvious, from the dark figures standing just beyond her line of sight, that she didn't really have much of a choice. But if she was going to give him what he wanted, then she would also ask something in return. "Very well, I'll do it on one condition"

"Speak"

There was a tense silence as Rumira mulled over what she would ask in return. There were so many questions she wanted answered, but she knew that she could only ask one question or ask for one deed, within reason of course. Finally she settled on something simple.

"I want to see you face." She finally said. Rumira expected a reaction coming from Leandros, something that would give away any piece of information about him, yet there was none. The gold-armored warrior simply took a step back and slowly began to undo the straps that held his helmet in place.

….

'She wants to see my face huh?' Leandros thought it funny how simple her condition was. Truth be told, he'd never seen his own face in a very long time, and he himself was curious on what he'd even look like. Before he undid the straps, there were many things to consider. There were no bonfires here, so he had no chance to reverse his Hollowing, and if he did take off his helmet now he would most definitely look like overcooked bacon and that would probably freak her out. 'Eh….what the heck…'

With that, Leandros began undoing the straps of his helmet….

….

His face was pale, she noted. His hair was of a shade of dark brown, and his lips held a slight tint of red. Yet the most striking feature he had was his eyes. They were of deep blue, one that matched the morning sky, with a strange fiery outer rim that seemed to rotate very slowly. His eyes were beautiful and mystifying at the same time. Of all the humans Rumira had seen, Leandros was the most alluring. Oh she could just stare at those deep blue oceanic orbs and seemingly get lost in them. But, being the warrior that she was, Rumira was quick to regain her composure. Still, the man was attractive.

Leandros gave a curt nod, which was a signal, Rumira concluded, for her to uphold her end.

'I'm being incredibly complacent here…but' She really did not want to be doing this right now, but then she had no choice and she still wanted to live. "So what do you want to know?"

"Tell….everything"

….

Leandros asked hundreds of questions and Rumira did her utmost best to answer each and every one of them. He asked of the histories, the races, the magic, the technologies, the ongoing conflicts, and the languages they spoke and how to speak them. Leandros learned of the Horde and the Alliance, their constant skirmishes and battles, their reasons for fighting each other, and the alliance they once had in the past to combat the demons that now roam the lands. Of course, being a warrior, Rumira simply could not tell him about everything that had been going on in this world. Everything she told him was information that was accessible to all people, who wanted to know, and yet, he absorbed all this new information as if he'd never heard of them before, and that was something Rumira found to be extremely odd, but she kept quiet.

"This place land is only a little bit less chaotic than where I came from apparently…." Leandros spoke, this time fluently after hearing Rumira speak of the languages and by simply listening to her, he learned. It was strange. The people of the Great Swamp spoke the exact same language that they speak here. How did they know of it? 'That question would be answered later'

"You may go" Leandros said, grabbing his spear and suddenly walking away. Rumira was left dumbfounded.

'That's it?' She thought.

'My destiny is in this world?' Leandros repeated the words of the accursed Primordial Serpent, and thought hard on why this was the case. He was lost here. Despite knowing all those things Rumira had told him, of which he was still very doubtful since it came from only one source, he was still utterly lost here. Sure, it was chaotic and war-torn, but Lordran was much like that. Heck, even Astora, the land of his birth, was pretty much the same, except for the lack of other races besides humans. Leandros was so deep in thought that he almost didn't notice that Rumira had not left and was now tailing him, almost.

"Our business is concluded!" He said sternly, turning his back on the girl. "Leave in peace. The Darkwraiths will not harm you."

Still she did not leave.

So he ignored her.

After walking for several minutes along the coastline, Leandros saw a lone corpse by a palm tree. The corpse had rotten for quite some time, as evidenced by the flies and maggots that now covered it. Leandros also noted that the corpse belonged to a human female, judging from the hipbones and the chest cavity. Then it ticked, a strange instinct, one that he had never felt before, suddenly took hold. Leandros reached out with his free hand, his left, and touched the forehead of the corpse. The maggots and flies dispersed at his touched, and then…..

The corpse's fingers suddenly twitched….


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: If you're wondering, the events currently happening are happening a few weeks before the WotLK, or before Arthas awakens from the Icecrown._

* * *

…..

Chapter 5: The Coming Darkness

_Jaina slowly stalked through the seemingly endless silver halls with tall blue crystal pillars that emanated a strangely soothing glow and a soft humming sound. Her bare feet felt cold as they touched the obsidian floor. At the end of the hall was a single black door with a strange circular flame adorning its center. Jaina fastened her pace to reach the door and, as she did so, the obsidian behind her suddenly gave way and began collapsing and shattering into tiny black pieces that went into the air, below the shattered pieces was an abyss. She ran towards the door and pushed with all her might, the door shattered and she fell into the darkness below._

_Jaina wanted to scream, but she couldn't. The darkness embraced her being and engulfed her soul in such a way that she simply could not resist it. She twisted her body and saw, at the bottom of the endless black pit was a strange rustic sword that was skewered through the darkness and the end of this sword was a small fire that burned with a strange intensity. She landed near the sword and the flame, and found that it was strangely soothing. She reached out to the flame and found that it didn't burn her. _

_Then the sword suddenly shattered, then the darkness came down, and all she saw became a blinding white light. Jaina shielded her eyes were own hands, averting her gaze from the blinding light. The girl tentatively lowered her hands when the light seemingly disappeared. Now she found herself standing on dead plants. It was an endless plain, she noticed, filled with corpses and dead things. The ground itself had dried out that it was more desert now. _

_She took her first step to a random direction, and then another, and then another. This place was a field of endless death, she thought. All around her were the corpses of warriors; Humans, Elves, Orcs, Draenais, and even demons. The only sound she heard was the cawing of the crows and the blowing of the dry wind. Then, at the distance was a single figure, which stood atop a mountain of corpses. The figure carried a large golden spear that was drenched in blood. Then the figure rose and leapt to where she stood. The moment his feet hit the ground, a resounding quake soon followed. The ground bellowed and all the corpses shook, Jaina herself found it hard just to stand properly. Then the quake stopped and the sun blackened, almost as if a dark smoke had enveloped the shining golden orb atop the sky. _

_The world went cold, and Jaina Proudmoore sank to her feet as she felt the dark chill, far away she witnessed the last light of the sun, previously caressing the mountaintop, suddenly flicker and disappear._

"_Witness….fear" The figure spoke, dropping his spear and extending both his arms sideways. Then he flicked his fingers, and all the corpses stood up off the ground. Fear crept up to her mind as she was now surrounded by thousands upon thousands of the living dead. The figure reached out to her….._

Then she woke up…..

…...

* * *

The sun rose and the light finally touched the stone walls of Theramore after a long night. For a moment, the town seemed utterly peaceful and serene until one noticed the guards patrolling outside the high walls and sentries atop the high towers. Theramore belonged to the Alliance, and as such is under constant threat from the Horde. At times there were minor raids and skirmishes among adventurers and foot-soldiers, other times it almost became a full-scale war with only the threat of a mutually assured destruction stopping both sides from going into an all-out war.

Jaina Proudmoore, the leader of the people of Theramore Isle, now sat alone in her chambers, sleepless and utterly terrified.

'That was no mere dream', Jaina thought, struggling to make sense of what she'd seen in her vision. The intensity of what she'd felt, the vivid details of the events that had transpired, and the strange ominous aura she'd encountered felt all too real to be just a dream. Jaina quickly stood up; ignoring her crumpled nightgown and messy hair, and went directly to the castle library. The symbol she saw on the door in her vision was something she'd remembered quite vividly, and now she craved to know what that symbol meant. A circular flame of unknown dark magic that unleashed a terrible aura of endless hunger; that was something she really needed to find out.

'Breakfast and bath can wait', she told herself right before she opened the castle library. There were few people inside, some scholars and mages seeking to study and gain new knowledge. Jaina herself briefly studied the library before approaching the section that contained ancient lore and forgotten tomes of a distant past. She knew not whether she'd find the symbol there, but it was her instincts that told her to begin her search in that section of the library, and so she did.

It was an area in the library that nobody ever bothered with. The books were dusty and divider was old and unclean. The air was still and cold. Jaina peered over the multitude of old books, each of them held vast amounts of knowledge unknown to her, but she only needed to know a few. Grabbing the first book she could get her hands on, Jaina began reading.

2 Days Later:

'No!', Jaina mentally cursed as she tossed away another book, behind her was a very large pile of books she'd already discarded. There was no clear information about that symbol on any of the books she'd read so far, only faint mentions and whispers about a flaming circle that was associated with something called the 'Dark Soul'. Then she searched about this Dark Soul, along with any information about the fiery circle, but she found absolutely nothing about it. The words Dark Soul were only ever mentioned once about a tome concerning the nature of the dead and their souls, but that was just it; it was only mentioned and never expanded upon.

Frustration took hold of her being and she tossed away the book she'd been holding to the pile. Then she realized that she'd not eaten for a while now, what with her focus being on the books. With a sigh, Jaina finally went out of the library, still discontent about her lack of progress, but also hungry enough to temporarily halt her search; never mind the fact that she had not bathed in 2 days.

Just as the lady of Theramore exited the castle library, a faint whisper suddenly resounded just at the back of her head, causing her to turn around. The voice almost seemed childlike in nature, but she could hear no more.

'It's probably from the lack of sleep', she concluded just as she turned around to continue her strides towards her personal chambers. She reached the stairs and then the whispers came again, this time they were even fainter, but she could hear the words properly this time. Jaina stepped back and went towards the library door, where she stood waiting for another whisper. She really wasn't sure if the whispers were just the result of a lack of sleep and food, but Jaina simply wanted to be sure.

'_Thou wishest to see the dark sign….'_ the whisper said, and Jaina instantly went back into the library.

'_Over here!' _She heard it speak again, guiding her towards a collection of books just by the tomes she'd been previously reading. These books looked far older than the ones she'd read a while back. Dust and cobwebs had settled on their surfaces that their features could hardly be noticed at all; the books seemed like lumps of dust vaguely in the shape of rectangles, but this is where the whisper led her.

'_Reach out young one….' _It said again, coaxing her to reach for a particular tome just in the middle of the bundle of books. As her hand neared the book, all the dust it had accumulated suddenly started to fly off, gradually leaving the black book spotless. She grabbed it, feeling the old leather bound and the cracks that came with book aging. There, at the center of the book's cover, was the circular flame she had seen in her dream.

The moment she saw the cover on the tome, Jaina immediately knew that her vision held a great significance to coming events. She was not quite sure what it was, but the feelings and emotions she remembered from her dream simply told her that something was coming, something that carried a power of great magnitude, and she needed to know what.

Jaina took the book and went back to her chambers in great haste. She needed to read this book as soon as she could, but first things first. Her stomach was growling like an angry mongrel, she needed food.

"Jaina! There you are. There are matters that require yo-", Jaina heard the familiar voice of her advisor, Aegwynn suddenly speaking. "….Jaina you reek! What have you been doing all this ti-"

Aegwynn stopped her banter when she saw the book that was firmly clutched in Jaina's hands. She recognized that book, and the symbol that was etched on the tome's ruined leather cover. She'd read that once before, sometime during her childhood. It was from a time when she was plagued with visions, and these visions she saw the same symbol over and over again, the same symbol that lay on the cover of the ancient tome. Yet nothing came of those particular visions, they came and went, and soon she forgot about them. But seeing Jaina now, holding the same book she'd once held with the same face she once had, Aegwynn couldn't help but feel a strange foreboding.

'Why would she be suddenly interested in that book?' She asked herself, pondering on what need Jaina has of that book. The tome itself only held information on the nature of souls, and the abyss, a strange realm that existed parallel to the Twisting Nether and was said to be a gateway of sorts to a world called the Progenitor world, but was inaccessible to all creatures that were alive. It was an interesting read, but there wasn't really any useful information. "Have you been wasting your time in the Library again?"

"Magna I was just-"

"Lady Proudmoore!" The barging of the door and the sudden voice of a familiar messenger took both Aegwynn's and Jaina's attention. The man, who was dressed in full armor and was carrying with him a scroll, looked as if he had been running for many hours straight and would've probably dropped from exhaustion right there and then if it wasn't for the urgency of his message. The messenger held out the scroll, which was immediately taken by Aegwynn, and spoke: "The leaders of the Alliance are to meet in Darnassus in two days, my lady! Something very important has come up and every leader needs to be present!"

Then he walked away, slightly limping from his many hours of running in full mail armor. Jaina raised an eyebrow at the messenger's youthful eagerness before opening the scroll. The book she had previously clasped upon her hands was now on the table next to her, completely forgotten in favor of the urgent message.

It took Jaina several seconds to finish reading, before she finally placed the scroll down.

"What is so urgent?" Aegwynn inquired, curious as to what could be so important as to require a meeting of all leaders of the Alliance. Could it be that the Horde has finally rallied and is now ready to strike out in total war? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it was certainly of great importance to warrant such attention, and the scroll was even hand written by Tyrande Whisperwind herself, the lady of Darnassus, it was all the proof of the meeting's importance she needed.

"I am not sure" Jaina began, prompting Aegwynn to raise an eyebrow at her answer. How could she be unsure? "Lady Tyrande wrote here that the situation is simply far too complicated to write and that is why she needs all leaders to gather in a summit meeting, where she'll explain everything."

"That sounds incredibly vague….." Aegwynn noted in a deadpan tone. Jaina too knew how strange this request for a summit was. There was no note of why this was even called in the first place, just Tyrande's word that this was of great importance. Still, Tyrande's word was not to be underestimated, and she has on many occasions proven herself to be worthy of trust. As an act of goodwill and careful diplomacy, Jaina simply must attend the meeting.

"Then go"

"Yeah just let me just take a bath first"

…

* * *

ON A SMALL ISLAND WEST OF STONETALON MOUNTAINS:

The island he stayed on was not particularly large compared to others he could name, but it was just enough to act as his temporary base of operations. Funny, when he was still a knight serving under his lord, there was one time when he and his regiment was given an order to purge a castle that lay on an island much like this one.

The lumbering footsteps of a Sea Giant finally drew Leandros out of his musings. The gold armored warrior stood up from where he previously sat and simply gazed upon the group that was huddled before him. There were Sea Giants, Nagas, Humans, Elves, Harpies and a lot of Murlocs, now standing in formation in front of him, their liege, Leandros. Some days ago, all these creatures were mere corpses he found on the seashore, just laying beneath the sands. Some of them were decayed beyond recognition, and some were even skeletonized by the time Leandros found them, the Sea Giants in particular, had their skeletons covered in moss by the time Leandros found them. Yet here they all were, gathering in front of their new liege, very much alive.

"You" Leandros said, pointing to one of five Naga Myrmidons now loyal to him.

"Yes my liege" It said in its strange beastly voice.

"Assist the Murlocs in making the furrows." Leandros commanded, turning his face to the area where the Murlocs were currently working to build a suitable base. The Naga Myrmidon simply bowed again.

"It shall be done my liege" It said before waking over to where the Murlocs were and began using its massive spear to assist in making the furrows deeper and longer.

From his position atop a particularly large boulder, Leandros could see that all these creatures under his command were working with incredible diligence, as if propelled by some force he did not yet understand. His ability to command never seemed to have left him, after all, he was a captain in life; leading troops into battle for his lord. Now he himself was a lord of these creatures whom he had somehow revived. In truth, Leandros himself still had not figured out how he was able to revive these creatures or why they now serve him. All he knew was that each time he revived a corpse or a skeleton, a single soul, from his vast arsenal of over hundreds of thousand souls, would transfer into the corpse and become the new consciousness the inhabits the body. At least that's what he figured….

"My liege" The voice of one of the humans, Ruby, if he remembered correctly suddenly called out to him. Leandros was brought out of his musings and quickly shifted his attention to whatever this human female had to report. "My liege, construction of the watchtower is nearly finished, but we'll need additional lumber from the mainland since there is a lack of resources in this island. (If you're wondering the Island is 5 square km and covered with thick jungles, but lacks the kind of wood that could be made into structures. They are currently building their base at the center of the island where the jungles are not so thick nor the ground too wet from seawater)"

"Do what needs to be done Ruby" Was Leandros' reply. The girl bowed and scurried off. If he'd been faced with the question of: Why was he doing all this? Then Leandros would have absolutely no concrete answer. He didn't even want to have servants, but somehow….he felt a certain attachment to these people, after all, he was the one who brought them back to life and simply leaving them, when they truly did wish to follow him, would be very irresponsible. So now here he was, overseeing the construction of a base that held no particular purpose other than to pass the time. Really now, if he wanted servants he could've just summoned the Darkwraiths that now serve him for another unknown reason he was keen on discovering, but the blasted creatures gave off an aura that put him off, so he opted not to summon them unless truly needed, after all, the Darkwraiths are incredibly powerful warriors without equal….

'Yeah…and I went to New Londo and basically stepped on them till they all died.'

With his musings done, Leandros opted to check on his new underlings. The three Sea Giants were doing an excellent job at piling the massive stone blocks needed to construct a proper castle. At first, Leandros wanted a simple wooden structure where his non-aquatic underlings could stay in. But when he saw one of the Sea Giants uproot a tree, his plan shifted accordingly. The creatures were incredibly strong, but not very bright, which meant they needed constant guidance. Of course, him being their liege, they took his word with utmost obedience. A few meters away from the lumbering Sea Giants, the twenty Murlocs were hard at work at making furrows on the ground to the redirect the flow of the small stream that was present in the island. The water would provide sustenance for the small group of humans and elves he had with him since they could not live on seawater like the Murlocs, Nagas and Sea Giants.

Next were the remaining four Naga Myrmidons, since one of them was instructed by Leandros to assist the Murlocs. They were tasked with scouting the waters around the island for anything useful, like treasures and skeletons. So far, they've only been able to find a few gold coins from a sunken pirate ship just a little south from of the Island. The humans and elves, who totaled at ten humans and seven elves, were tasked with building a watchtower. Ruby, who had approached him earlier, was the first being he'd ever revived.

Satisfied with what he'd seen, Leandros simply walked off towards the eastern beachside of the island, hoping to find some manner of respite and wisdom on what he should be doing next. Hopefully his underlings will be too busy to disturb him on petty matters.

Leandros now lay on the white sands of the beach, with the waves occasionally covering his lower body in cold sea water.

Was it mental exhaustion that plagued him so? Leandros was not sure anymore. He'd already spent a week in this land, and so far his purpose here had eluded him at every turn. For a warrior, the greatest torture was to be without purpose, and that was exactly what Leandros felt at the moment, utterly purposeless. Still, mulling about his life seemed quite uncharacteristic of him, Leandros noted.

'The Primordial Serpents told me my destiny was here…..' He recalled the words of the wretched creature with the stench of moldy grease and moss. 'I am the Dark Lord, yet I am here. I am the lord of the Sun, the usurper of Gwynn's throne. To be the Dark Lord is to be the ruler of a dying world…to be the ruler…..'

The next thing that came to mind were the words of the being whom he remembered was named Elune. He did promise her that he'd choose the path of least violence.

'That's going to be marvelously difficult….' He mused, lightly smirking behind his golden helmet. If he didn't have a purpose before, then he'll just make one for himself. If he couldn't rule the dark world he'd left behind, then he'll just have to settle for this one. 'At least this world isn't dying….'

Deep inside Leandros, something stirred. An ancient will that had long resided within his body. When he was alive it had remained dormant, but upon his death, the dark powers immediately seeped into his soul. The blood of the Furtive Pigmy, the ancient power that struck down the dragons alongside Gwynn, Nito, and the Witch of Izalithl; the lost blood of great power now stirred. For a very long time, it had remained dormant, sleeping alongside the Dark Soul, but now that Leandros was ready, the Dark Soul had already stirred. Now it would simply bide its time until the fruit was ripe.

With his mind now set to a clear goal, Leandros stood up and went back to his new companions.

'Strange….' He thought, thinking back on his time in Lordran. He smiled and looked up to the sun. "Hey Solaire…does this count as jolly cooperation?"

He said half-heartedly, facing the sun and remembering the sight of Solaire, one of the few people whom he considered as friends; fall to madness in Lost Izalith. His resolve almost faltered when he saw a friend in such a state, even worse that he could do nothing to help. As a last goodbye, and as a symbol of their past friendship, Leandros was forced to end Solaire's existence the only way a warrior's light should be extinguished, death by the sword.

When Leandros reached his underlings, he saw they were still hard at work. Furrows were now properly dug; the only thing left was to line the sides with stone so that it won't collapse on itself. The Sea Giants had nearly finished building the foundations of the stone structure he'd designed and the Naga Myrmidons had apparently found a treasure chest, though he was still not quite sure on what he'd use it on. Next, the watchtower was nearly built. Leandros even saw the long stocks of wood Ruby and her assistants had hauled from the mainland.

Underneath his helmet, Leandros smiled.

…..

* * *

Jaina Proudmoore carefully walked up the steps that led to where the summit was going to be held. With every step, she would stop and look at the sights of the beautiful night elf city she was in. Jaina had been to Darnassus before, but it was only once and it was all too brief for her to enjoy the sights properly. Kaldorei architecture was simply brilliant, the houses that lay atop the trees, the overlapping of nature and intelligent design was all so marvelous that she could just lose herself watching the beautiful city. As she ascended, Jaina couldn't help but compare Human ingenuity and Night Elven ingenuity. Whenever Humans built their cities, the environment would suffer as a result. Trees would be cut down and the mountains would be desecrated to create stone quarries, and yet the Night Elves were able to build cities while still coexisting with nature.

'Oh I really need to speak with Lady Tyrande about this one' Jaina mused, continuing her trek upwards, where the other alliance leaders should be gathering. When Jaina reached the top, however, she was shocked to see only lady Tyrande sitting alone on a chair beside a circular table that was clearly meant for all the leaders. Jaina seethed deep down upon seeing Tyrande's dejected face. Her eyes were closed, as if in deep silent thought, and yet her eyebrows were furrowed, which indicated some measure of worry present in her. Tyrande's eyes instantly opened when she heard Jaina's footsteps. She smiled and gestured for the lady Proudmoore to take a seat beside her. "Greetings, lady Tyrande"

"Greetings, lady Proudmoore" Tyrande said with warmth. Among the many leaders in the Alliance, Jaina was one of the people whom she trusted the most. Tyrande remembered the assault on the world tree where Jaina stood by as the first line of defense against the Burning Legion. In her mind, Jaina Proudmoore the lady of Theramore Isle was someone she could count on. "I had hoped for more leaders…..but time is of the essence and you must hear of what I have to say"

"Something powerful has awakened in the land of Northrend…"

"…The Scourge…"

"Yes...I have great reason to believe that the scourge has stirred anew" Tyrande began. "Though the humans in the eastern kingdoms are not ignorant to the the threat of the scourge, I believe this may be something else entirely. Though there is also more troubling news that I've recently received from one of my people. I wouldn't have believe her storied had some fishermen not confirm it to be true."

"Is it related to the Scourge?"

"I believe so...given the nature of the report." Tyrande answered. "Several days ago, the village of Atrosus was attacked by a warband of demons and satyrs..."

"One of the sentinels who fought in the defense of the village, Arein Shadowleaf, reported seeing a strange Gold Armored Warrior who fought against a group of Satyrs just mere hours before they arrived in Atrosus. At first, I really did not find her report to be anything that was troubling. After all, there are many adventurers who fit the description of having a Gold Armor." She continued. "After some time, an adventurer, one of my people, Rumira Whitefade, suddenly arrives to speak of the same warrior, but this is where it becomes troubling..."

Tyrande then went on to recount the story of Rumira, up to the point where she ran away after seeing the Gold Armored warrior revive a skeleton. Normally, this wouldn't even be considered news. There were necromancers known far and wide across the continent of Kalimdor and Azeroth as the whole, these people were famed for their ability to reanimate corpses. What made Rumira's report incredibly different was that this was no mere reanimation, this was true revival. She spoke of veins suddenly appearing, followed by organs and muscles, and the skin which came last. The assassin had witnessed a true resurrection, where a truly dead thing was brought back to life. No necromancer, not even the Lich King was capable of such a feat, which was why Tyrande found it incredibly troubling. Then, mere a day later, reports from local fishermen began piling up about a tall Gold Armored warrior who was bringing the corpses on the beach back to life.

When Jaina left Darnassus, she immediately sent messages to all leaders of the Alliance about everything Tyrande had told her about the sudden surge of power in the roof the world, Northrend, but she never spoke about the man who supposedly had the ability to bring people back to life. When she arrived in Theramore, Jaina immediately issued a quest for the adventurers to locate this person. Unfortunately, majority of the adventurers in Theramore were those, who lacked experience, but she desperately needed to confirm this for herself even if she had to keep it a secret from the other lords.

...

Days Later

* * *

Ruby Corvin now stood before the gates of Theramore. Some days ago, she heard rumors from the local fishermen that a quest had been given out to locate her master, Leandros. Although his full description was never revealed, all the info they had on her master was accurate. Tall, wore Golden Armor, and had a red plume behind his Lion-head shaped helmet. They were accurate, but Ruby had a feeling that whoever took this quest would have an extremely hard time locating her master. Still, that was not why she was here. Her master had tasked her and some of peers to gather any information they could on this side of the continent. Leandros had given them specific instructions to stay here for several and report back to their base should the need arise.

While they did their intelligence gathering, Leandros would travel around Kalimdor and learn as much as he could from this world. Meanwhile, the Nagas, Murlocs and Sea Giants would live in their little island and protect their new lair.

"Hey Ruby" One of her peers, Shae Rulke, called out to her. Shae Rulke, Ruby Corvin and Caer Peris, were the three who were hand picked by Leandros to perform this mission. The three would remain in the guise of adventurers and hopefully eventually join the ranks of the Alliance as high members. That was quite far away, but not entirely impossible since the three of them were already a basic party. Ruby was an archer, Shae was a warrior, and Caer was a priest. If they stuck together, then they'd quickly rise through the ranks. "Let's go. Our liege gave us a mission..."

"Of course..."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6: The Pale Shadow

Liana Bleakwind was never someone to make rash decisions. Ever since she watched her sister die in battle against the new horde, she'd been very cautious – planning everything beforehand and reevaluating said plans a hundred times to make sure they would be flawless. It had been a simple plan overall: Launch a lightning attack on a group of Blood Elves on a mission, steal whatever items they had, and run back to Forest Song to rendezvous with the other members of their party. Liana, ever confident in her plan, took only five junior members with her; thinking that it was just another routine raid. Unfortunately, her plan just blew up in her face.

It all started so well; the blood elves never detected them and their plans were all going incredibly smoothly until something unexpected happened. Scratch that: what happened next was something that not even the greatest general in the Horde or Alliance could've predicted. A gold-clad warrior broke out of the trees and threw some sort of explosive fire magic at their hiding spot, instantly alerting the Blood Elves. But then, the warrior who had previously attacked them summoned some sort of lightning spear from his hands and threw said spear towards the group of blood elves.

"What the fuck!?" She heard someone yell, but wasn't sure from which side.

Then it all went to hell.

The Blood Elves started firing spells towards their location and towards whomever it was that attacked both their groups. Unfortunately for everyone present, the figure was faster than all of them and, like Liana's group, only came for the Blood Elves' loot. The Blood Elves, now angry and lootless, turned their attention to Liana's group and began attacking them with every spell they could possibly muster. Meanwhile, the gold armored warrior simply vanished back into the forest. With the Blood Elves outnumbering their group 4:1, Liana was forced to order a retreat, but luck was not on her side.

One of the Blood Elves fired an arrow at her leg and it connected, effectively preventing her from escaping as the arrow had hindered her movement – nevermind the pain it brought. As her allies all retreated back into the bushes, narrowly escaping the advance of the Blood Elves, Liana was left there with a bleeding leg; the worst part was that the blood elves probably thought it was her group that stole the treasure they'd found.

'I am so dead…..' Liana drew her dagger as she waited for the coming Blood Elves.

…

In most cases, Leandros wouldn't even think about taking anything from the people who lived in this world. He had a powerful weapon, a nearly-indestructible armor and the advantage of never having to consume anything for survival. Whatever treasures these people had was useless to him, they simply had nothing he could possibly desire – and even he knew not what he desired at this point.

It started out as a simple quest of curiosity he'd personally taken. Leandros had heard of a group called the Twilight's Hammer, and that there were particularly high ransoms for the heads of its members – he even assigned his subjects to claim the ransoms if they could – so he decided to collect the bounty from said heads. It took him some time to track down these Twilight cultists, but he did eventually find a small group of the beasts lurking in some cave near the coast; completely hidden from the eyes of the Alliance and the Horde.

Despite his armor, Leandros was actually incredibly silent during his approach towards the cave entrance, where he knew the beasts to be lurking just out of sight, but an undead did not need eyes to find the living. Due to their need to feast on souls, a living being – quite rare in Lordran – was like a beacon to them, shining brightly with their living souls. Because of this, Leandros was already made aware of their positions long before he approached the cave. There were at least a hundred of these beasts, and each of them was armed to the teeth with various weapons. He could kill them all instantly of course, but the method for such results would simply erase his needed evidence to collect the ransom.

At about fifty or so yards away from the mouth of the cave, Leandros was patiently waiting behind a bush – thinking on the many possible ways he could approach the situation. The most simple way would be to rush in, spear drawn, and just proceed to massacre every living thing inside the cave. Unfortunately, that plan was just too reckless and he might end up getting seriously injured like that one other time with the 'elves'. The second possible approach was to summon his Darkwraith servants and have them rush in there and kill everything. The bad part about this plan was that he would be summoning a large force that would be quite susceptible to witnesses and suspicion, how could such a large force suddenly appear out of thin air and vanish as quickly as they did?

He'd already seen some of these 'Warlocks' summoning demons, but never on the same numeric scale as he could summon the Darkwraiths. Now that he thought about it he never really tested how many Darkwraiths he could summon, he'd have to test that sometime.

The third plan was to find a way to alert either the Horde or Alliance, have them send in a party in there, join said party, and then kill them all when no one's looking. It wasn't a very good plan considering his 'path-of-least-violence' promise to Elune, which he'd probably already broken so now he mentally changed it to just 'don't kill as many people as you normally would' policy.

The heavy sound of a footstep quickly alerted Leandros to the presence of several other beings in the immediate vicinity – just far enough that he couldn't smell their living souls, but near enough for him to hear their footsteps. There were at least 70 people, each of them were heavily armed and poised for battle.

'They must be here to exterminate the Twilight cultists…..' He thought, now backing away to blend in with the darkness of the woods. There would be heavy fighting soon, and he need not be a part of any of it. True, he could initiate plan number 3, but Elune would not be so happy if he did – angering any of the gods here was not a part of his immediate plan.

With his mind set, Leandros turned to leave, but a familiar presence inside the cave stopped him dead on his tracks. It was this same feeling he received upon being near this particular presence – a strange and yet soothing caress that kept him from going insane back in Lordran. This was the presence that had once represented a beacon of hope in the darkness that was the land of the undead; one of a few lanterns that danced in an eternal darkness. Because of this, Leandros was instantly on his feet – lurking in the darkness but slowly making his way towards the cave. He couldn't deal with all of them right now, he could if he wanted to, but that would be crazy suicidal and incredibly stupid.

Soon, the sounds of clashing metal and crashing bones started to roar around the night. Death hung heavily in the air, Leandros felt it. The attackers were winning, despite their disadvantage in quantity, and the Twilight's hammer orcs were slowly being whittled away by the superior Blood elven force. As the battle raged on at the entrance of the cave where the opposing forces were bottlenecked, Leandros slowly made his way to a high ground near the entrance, but was obscured by a small pocket of trees.

…..

Shae Sunhallow sighed with exhaustion as he felled another Twilight orc. The battle had raged on for at least an hour now, and he was sure that his forces would win eventually, but at what cost? Of the original 80 warriors he brought with him, 40 had already been either killed or seriously injured. The orcs would all die of course since they had no way of escaping, but many good people would end up paying the price for the recovery of a supposedly powerful 'ancient artifact' that the Twilight cultists had recovered.

From what their leader had told them, the artifact was said to have been from a time even before the war of the ancients. What power it held, they did not know, but they'd rather not have the Twilight cultists be in possession of it; which was why they were here now, a Blood Elven host out to prove their loyalty to the Horde.

"KILL THEM ALL!" He bellowed, diving headlong into the lines of orcs and slaying as many as he could. His fellow warriors, now inspired by his courage, all charged with even more vigor than they had before. The Twilight cultists would not last long, but they would definitely put up a good fight. The battle was intense, the orcs were fanatical and unrelenting in their defense of the cave. He himself was almost bested by a particularly large orc that seemingly did not care for its own safety as it didn't bother defending itself properly, thus Shae was saved by the timely volley of archer fire. Still, they were fearless and brutal without a doubt, and even his best veterans were struggling against the unrelenting, but undisciplined orcish fighters. Little by little, the Blood elves slew the raging monsters. Each Blood elven warrior would take at least 3 orcs before he himself perished by the overwhelming orcs.

Just when they'd finally pushed back the orcs, just when victory was nearly at hand, just when they'd finally be victorious, something happened that no one could've predicted. The remaining 25 men, with their captain Shae Sunhallow, were finally about to exterminate the last of the orcs, about 30 of them now remained with broken morale. An incredibly bright flash of gold from the sky stole the attention of both forces, and for a brief instant, the night sky was illuminated by a strange power, until it coalesced into a single globe of golden energy. In the seconds that followed, all who stayed at the mouth of the cave experienced the briefest of flashbacks to their lives before. The golden energy cackled and unleashed a bolt of golden lightning so powerful that the earth itself seemed to shake and all those near the cave entrance were instantly vaporized.

All that remained of the 80 warriors were now just 6, and the orcs were all dead.

The remnants of the Blood elven force quickly moved into the cave to recover the artifact. They were dazed, confused and broken, but they were soldiers – the mission comes first, they would mourn later. The Blood Elves entered the cave, all of them broken in spirit from their earlier battle – a pyrrhic victory was no victory at all. Still, they ventured deep into the caves, discovering the bones of the long dead and treasures that these Twilight cultists had horded. They eventually found the artifact that they'd been told to recover.

It was a rusty short sword with a strange burning point, incredibly old; even the design of the sword showed its age if not for the rust, which was so think on it that it could even be said that the entire blade was just rust in the form of a sword. Still, the Blood Elves, with their natural affinity to magical powers, felt the great power that this artifact held. It was strange and utterly alien, it was magical in nature, but it was unlike any magic they'd ever felt before – this magic felt almost pure, magic in its most basic form.

"Many of my kin died to retrieve you" One of the remaining Blood elves spoke as he reached for the rusty artifact and took it into his hands. "I hope it was worth it"

They then placed the artifact inside an arcane container that masked the strange aura of the ancient sword. With their mission now half-way over, the remnants of the Blood elves' assault group began their long trek to Orgrimmar.

…..

"YOU!" Liana heard one of the Blood Elves enraged scream as her face was kicked to the ground again. Then she was pulled up and kicked down again. "MY BROTHER DIED TO RETRIEVE THAT THING AND YOU JUST STEAL IT!"

Liana was once kicked, this time on her stomach – forcing out the air from her body. In a final act of fury, one of the Blood elves ripped off the arrow that had been lodged in her thigh, causing her to scream in pain at the top of her lungs. Thankfully, the arrow had not hit a major artery, but she wouldn't be walking for quite some time if she survived this, which, judging from the angry faces of her captors, wasn't going to happen.

'I guess I'll never get to eat fish n chips again huh?' That was the only thought that ran through her mind as the world went absolutely dark.

…...

Leandros' grin was out of control. Really. He couldn't stop himself from grinning behind his helmet even if he had to face Gwynn again. What was now imbedded on the ground in front of him was a bonfire, which he himself had kindled after retrieving the bonfire sword from those elves. With this, he could finally change his armor and weapons; even access the items he'd once had but could no longer use since he'd been without a bonfire for quite some time. How did those green beasts find something like this? An artifact from his own world was something he did not expect to find here.

Nevertheless, he was thankful and very happy. Although, he himself had to admit that this bonfire was quite strange in comparison to what he'd grown accustomed to. Truly, this was the only bonfire that could be dislodged from the ground and be taken elsewhere. Obviously, it wasn't the bad kind of strange.

With a flick of his wrist, his Dragonslayer spear was instantly gone, and in its place was the weapon he rarely used and for good reason, it was as dangerous for him as it was for his enemies, the Lifehunt Scythe. As Leandros gripped the accursed weapon's handle, he felt his mind drift back to the times where he used this weapon and remembered the scars it bore into his soul each time he used it to kill someone. The weapon was meant to kill the user after it's killed, his state of undeath made him immune to the weapon's curse, but each time he killed with it he felt a piece of his own soul die. Yet even he couldn't deny the weapon's power, and in this world, he needed his most powerful weapons.

He strapped the Lifehunt Scythe to his back and summoned the Dark Silver Tracer from the bonfire. Now with two weapons on him, fighting was going to be a lot easier, and he suspected that there would be a lot of fighting going on in the future with how chaotic this world seemed. With that thought in mind, Leandros immediately reached for the bonfire and restored his humanity, reverting him a more human-like state of being, which would now allow him to remove his helmet without looking like a moving bacon.

Leandros stood up and immediately removed the blade from the soil, the fire at the tip of the blade instantly died down and he no longer felt the bonfire's own aura, but he could recreate it at any time he wished. For a brief moment, a shadow seemed to creep up beside him; Leandros turned to it and, from the shadow, emerged a Darkwraith. He couldn't carry the bonfire blade with him at all times; doing so would risk its destruction or loss. The Darkwraith held out its hands and received the rusty blade from Leandros before disappearing back into the shadows from whence it came, taking the sword with it.

…

Liana was forcibly brought back to the land of consciousness when she felt cold water splashing against her face. Coughing and still very disoriented, Liana nonetheless did her best to stay awake. Still, she'd really thought that she'd be killed back there – those Blood Elves looked very angry.

"What do you know of the artifact?" She heard a girl's voice ask, it was husky and heavy, but a woman's voice nonetheless. Liana, to her credit, really did try to stay awake, but she simply fell back unconscious. The would-be interrogators watched the human girl they'd captured simply went limp once again. Maybe she'd been kicked in the head a lot? One of the interrogators, a female orc named Tishka, held back a sigh of frustration as she signaled for another bucket of cold water. It took only a few minutes before another bucket of cold water was handed to her, and she simply splashed it on the unconscious prisoner once again.

This time, Liana was immediately wide awake and, to the orcs' dismay, completely fearless.

"My sister's vagina is scarier than you shits!" She yelled, earning her punch to the cheek by one of the many orcs present in the room. Liana simply turned her head to where that orc was and spat on his feet, which earned her another punch.

"Enough!" Tishka finally said, signaling the other orcs to stand behind her. She then grabbed a chair and sat in front of Liana, who was somehow able to hold her gaze without faltering. Tishka had to give it to her, this woman was brave and foolish, but mostly brave, and that earned her a small bit of respect from her. Still, they were enemies and she had a job to do for the Horde. "Why did you steal from us?"

"Ah that"

"Yes, that"

"Listen….I won't lie, that's exactly what I had planned: Steal from you guys and then run away." Liana said in a deadpan tone. "But those Blood elves should've told you about a gold-armored warrior right? Yeah, that's the one you're looking for. The man – or at least I think it was a man – just came out of fucking nowhere and started throwing exploding things at both groups before he made out with the treasure."

"Do you know what the 'treasure' was?" The orcish woman asked. Liana raised an eyebrow at her question. No info was given on what was exactly inside the casket, just that it was loot from a recent Horde raid into a Twilight's hammer hideout. The intel even specified that it would be an easy catch since the Blood elves would've been exhausted from their earlier raid. Now that she thought about it: Who HAD given her that intel? Oh yes, she remembered now. Back at the tavern in Astranaar, a Kaldorei by the name of Arein Shadowleaf had informed her of unusual Horde activity near Talrendis point Northeast of Orgrimmar. After that it was just a matter of investigating what she'd been told.

"No, I don't know what was inside that box." She began. "But I do know that it was probably in our best interests that it didn't reach your people."

"If a Blood elf was here, they'd probably have killed you." Tishka retorted, sighing softly as she recalled the group of Blood elves who had returned. They were all shocked, her included, at the great loss they'd experienced. The death of 74 soldiers was nothing to scoff at, and it was all for naught because the artifact they'd been sent to find was stolen from them. Well, the world was cruel like that, but it didn't mean she had to like it. "74 good men and women died to retrieve that artifact. They were not my kin, but still they were a part of the horde."

"Look lady I'm sorry for that, but we're technically at war and there are bound to be deaths"

Tishka said nothing and simply stood up and walked away. She was immediately followed by the other orcs within the room, leaving Liana alone on the chair – tied up.

…..

It wasn't long until the search for this 'Gold armored' warrior became one of the many quests given out to the adventurers of both the Alliance and the Horde. Leandros, of course, knew this, but he really didn't care too much since it wasn't that big of a deal for now. His underlings reported that, while there was a bounty out for him, it wasn't really that big of a bounty. Really, the only thing that remotely worried him – not really – was the possible revenge of those Blood elves, but then he also didn't care about them.

He was currently walking westwards to reach his personal Island, where his fort would no undoubtedly be finished if no one interfered. It took him at least several days before he finally reached the coastline. Just as he was about to start swimming – he was undead so water wasn't really much of an obstacle – a strange winged shadow suddenly soared passed him.

Leandros looked up and gaped.

There was a huge pale dragon flying right above him.

AAAAAAND CUT!

Sorry for the long update life just caught it with me and now I have a baby daughter! Still, now that I have some free time from paternity leave I will be writing whenever the little one is sleeping! So maybe the next update will be next month


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